Thursday, March 9, 2017

What, exactly, is going on with the Trump-Russian connection? Answer: we don’t know because the media is obfuscating the truth and promoting the lies. But that won’t stop them from asserting, slyly, that it’s the worst scandal since Watergate. Just don’t ask them to produce any facts to substantiate this allegation. Someone has to flush them out.

Bird Dog, Flushing Out the Grouse

Trump’s been itching to unleash his own inner bird dog ever since the Clinton operatives were caught“bird-dogging” his campaign events to incite violence. So when he grew tired of all the lies, accusations and innuendos regarding him, his people and Russia he upped the ante last Saturday by accusing Obama of “tapping his phones in Trump Tower.” And it would seem that his flushing instincts were dead on:

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared on Meet the Press this past weekend to discuss the Trump-Russia scandal. Chuck Todd asked: Were there improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?

JAMES CLAPPER: We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that…

Why, that’s enough to give even “Democratic operatives with a byline” like Matt Taibbi pause:

And yet, this is an extraordinarily complex tale that derives much of its power from suppositions and assumptions.

If there's any truth to the notion that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian state to disrupt the electoral process, then yes, what we're seeing now are the early outlines of a Watergate-style scandal that could topple a presidency.

But it could also be true that both the Democratic Party and many leading media outlets are making a dangerous gamble, betting their professional and political capital on the promise of future disclosures that may not come. - Rolling Stone

Did these people not read “The Art of the Deal?” Russian connections or no, wiretap or no, Trump will be Trump. And he seldom goes hunting without returning with a bird, even if it’s not exactly the one he was hunting for.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

1. The GOP class assignment: Obamacare: Repeal and Replace. You’ve had over 6 years to work on it and this is the best you can do? Obamacare-lite? If that’s what we had in mind we would have voted for Democrats. And don’t give me the old “it’s only phase one, we’ll fix the rest later” crap. That song was old 3 decades ago.

2.“A Day Without A Women” protest:

"March 8 will be the beginning of a new international feminist movement that organizes resistance not just against Trump and his misogynist policies," reads the website for the strike, "but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decadeslong economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad." CNN

Here’s what the new international feminist Womyn will be doing to protest “decadeslong economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad:”

Wearing Red,

Skipping Work,

“I’m sorry Hillary couldn’t welcome you to the White House, but she’s taken the next 4 years off.”

And Not Shopping – unless you really need something, and then only shopping at small, womyn-owned businesses.

There’s nothing here you do not already know but it serves as a useful reminder that what we are dealing with is an emotional distortion of reality which makes it harder to beat back with facts. The hyperbole of hysteria does not respond well to reason. I’m sure any of you who’ve tried to “discuss” such issues with a committed leftist believer knows this; the “discussion” usually ends in an angry huff when the leftist realizes they’ve been cornered with facts and resorts to name calling.

I wish I knew the solution but if decades of lousy results aren’t enough to repudiate the politics of the Left I don’t know what will. Possibly results? A Trump presidency that Makes America Great Again? Maybe that’s why, as you read the article, you will note how it could as easily serve as a primer explaining the hatred directed at Trump as well.

I felt that I was confronting the signature essence of my social life among leftists. We rushed to cast everyone in one of three roles: victim, victimizer, or champion of the oppressed. We lived our lives in a constant state of outraged indignation. I did not want to live that way anymore. I wanted to cultivate a disposition of gratitude. I wanted to see others, not as victims or victimizers, but as potential friends, as loved creations of God. I wanted to understand the point of view of people with whom I disagreed without immediately demonizing them as enemy oppressors…

9) Selective Outrage

I was an active leftist for decades. I never witnessed significant leftist outrage over clitoredectomy [just another culture’s rite of passage], child marriage, honor killing, sharia-inspired rape laws, stoning, or acid attacks. Nothing. Zip. Crickets. I’m not saying that that outrage does not exist. I’m saying I never saw it.

The left’s selective outrage convinced me that much canonical, left-wing feminism is not so much support for women, as it is a protest against Western, heterosexual men. It’s an “I hate” phenomenon, rather than an “I love” phenomenon.

7) Leftists hate my people.

The Reclusive Leftist blogged in 2009 that it was a “major shock” to discover “the extent to which so many self-described liberals actually despise working people.” The Reclusive Leftist focuses on Vanity Fair journalist Henry Rollins. Rollins recommends that leftists “hate-fuck conservative women” and denounces Palin as a “small town hickoid” who can be bought off with a coupon to a meal at a chain restaurant.

6) I believe in God.

Hang out in leftist internet environments, and you will discover a toxic bath of irrational hatred for the Judeo-Christian tradition…You will discover a nihilist void, the kind of vacuum of meaning that nature abhors and that, all too often, history fills with the worst totalitarian nightmares, the rough beast that slouches toward Bethlehem.

5 & 4) Straw men and “In order to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs.”

“Truth is that which serves the party.” The capital-R revolution was such a good, it could eliminate all that was bad, that manipulating facts was not even a venial sin; it was a good. If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. One of those eggs was objective truth.

2 & 3) It doesn’t work. Other approaches work better.

I went to hear David Horowitz speak in 2004. My intention was to heckle him. Horowitz said something that interrupted my flow of thought. He pointed out that Camden, Paterson, and Newark had decades of Democratic leadership…My students have learned to focus on the worst thing that ever happened to them, assume that it happened because America is unjust, and to recite that story, dirge-like, to whomever is in charge, from the welfare board to college professors, and to await receipt of largesse…“In a slum an exploiter is better than a Santa Claus… An exploiter forces you to react, whereas a Santa Claus demobilizes you.”

1) Hate.

Those posting messages in this left-wing forum publicly announced that they did what they did every day, from voting to attending a rally to planning a life, because they wanted to destroy something, and because they hated someone, rather than because they wanted to build something, or because they loved someone. You went to an anti-war rally because you hated Bush, not because you loved peace. Thus, when Obama bombed, you didn’t hold any anti-war rally, because you didn’t hate Obama.

Given that the left prides itself on being the liberator of women, homosexuals, and on being “sex positive,” one of the weirder and most obvious aspects of left-wing hate is how often, and how virulently, it is expressed in terms that are misogynist, homophobic, and in the distinctive anti-sex voice of a sexually frustrated high-school misfit.

I don’t think there is any question that the former president was intent on leaving behind landmines. And you are right, the NSA stuff is curious. Normally, when NSA is listening in on a foreigner, they take great care to redact any American involved. The NSA is not supposed to spy on Americans. Here it was the reverse, and there was an obvious attempt as was reported in the New York Times to make sure that this was spread as widely as possible, that it would become a problem for the Trump administration. I wouldn’t call it the “deep state,” it gives it a le Carré feel that there is this ominous enemy of the United States hidden in bureaucracy. What this is, is the revenge of the losers. These are people who wanted to make trouble for an administration of a guy who they thought wasn’t going to win and shouldn’t have won, and to see what happens. That is what I think is going on. To some extent, it has happened in other administrations. But I think it’s more obvious and we are going to get to the bottom of it, because there are going to be a lot of investigations.

Do you see how easily the world devolves? It starts with former Clinton’s sophomoric staff stunts that resulted in “damage, theft, vandalism and pranks” when they left the White House, including the theft of the “W” from computer keyboards. Sixteen years later the next Democratic administration losing the White House to a Republican leaves behind IEDs and ties to Dark State in an effort to bring down the Presidency. It’s like in New York: ignore the broken windows and before you know it you’ve got a murder rate like Chicago’s.

So if you’re old enough to remember Watergate you best fasten your seatbelt because “Towergate” (h/t Judge Jeanine) is shaping up to be a bumpy night.